FAMILY (HOUSEHOLD) SPONSORSHIP FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q1: How are sponsorship donations used?

A1: First, here is how your donations are not used: Pamoza will not be giving cash to the families you sponsor. Second, families basically produce their own food – corn, peanuts, beans, soybeans, and vegetables. Families who hope to be sponsored do not produce enough of these crops to meet their food needs mainly because they lack fertilizer, manure, and improved seed. Our objective is to help families not only produce enough food for their families but also surplus that they can sell to earn some income. So Pamoza will provide fertilizer and improved seed, and occasionally a tool or something else needed for farming, for every family you support. In this way, your donation will build a family’s capacity to grow enough food for themselves and some surplus to sell.

Further, your donation will pay salaries of the Family Sponsorship Facilitators and Coordinators in Malawi as well as the tools (bicycles, bicycle maintenance, motorcycles, fuel, ipads, notebooks, etc.) they use in their work. When the Facilitators visit a family, they help the family in each of the five areas that we refer to as C.H.I.E.F. areas: Character development, Health, Income-generating potential, Education, and Food security. Each area has a Coordinator, an expert in that area. With the guidance of Coordinators, Facilitators foster change in sponsored families.

In addition to advising the families on improved agricultural production methods, they counsel on marital relationships, they facilitate Bible studies and encourage character development where it’s needed, they make suggestions on ways families can optimize their education and skills to improve their ability to make money, they encourage families to participate in village savings and loan associations for better financial literacy and opportunity, and they advise families to take sick members of the family to the clinic if they need medical care. In essence, they serve as personal Development Agents (in America, the best equivalent might be “Life Coach”), striving always to help families overcome obstacles and make progress in C.H.I.E.F. areas.

Q2:  How long a commitment is Pamoza looking for from donors?

A2:  Pamoza asks for a commitment of prayer and financial support for Family Sponsorship for four years.  At $300 per year, the total financial commitment is for $1200.  The objective is to help needy and vulnerable families to become self-reliant and more successful in 5 inter-related areas of their lives that we refer to as C.H.I.E.F. areas:  Character, Health, Income generation, Education, and Food security.  There are no quick fixes.  But Pamoza believes that in four years, families can make measurable and sustainable changes with the help you’re offering through the Sponsorship program.  After that, Pamoza will continue to work with these families, but at a little more of a distance, encouraging them to continue growing in all of the C.H.I.E.F. areas.

Of course we recognize that personal and financial circumstances can change for our donors.  So if at any time a donor needs or wants to stop donating to the Family Sponsorship program, she or he is free to do so. If that were to happen, we would try to find another sponsor for “your” family so Pamoza’s work with them could continue without interruption.

Q3:  Can a sponsor support more than one family at a time?  And can a group like a Bible study group, a church, a school, a company, a foundation, an extended family group, a book club, or the like join together to support one or more families?

A3. Of course we welcome you to sponsor as many families as you’d like!

And there’s power and joy in sharing a common mission with others, so we celebrate and welcome groups that want to get together to sponsor one or more families.  Please just keep in mind that this is a multi-year commitment.

Q4:  How can a donor tell how a sponsored family is doing?

A4. Pamoza plans to report back to sponsors each year about their families’ progress in the C.H.I.E.F. areas of Character, Health, Income-generation potential, Education, and Food security.  The family update will also share with donors any particular new challenges your sponsored family has faced during the year.

Q5. Can sponsors and sponsored families exchange letters or emails or call each other?  Would it ever be possible to meet?

A5. Keep in mind that these families don’t have access to computers, phones, or daily mail service like American donors do.  While Pamoza technically has the capacity to facilitate some personal contact between donors and families, it would require that we spend resources that we believe are much better spent on one-on-one time with families, or agricultural assistance such as seed or fertilizer.  We want to maximize the impact of every dollar you give, so at this time we’re not arranging a mechanism for personal correspondence such as a “pen pal” feature to our sponsorship program. 

If donors would like to experience first-hand the culture and lifestyle of the remote rural Malawian communities where Pamoza works, you’re welcome to join us on a mission trip that we coordinate during some summers.  Be on the lookout for a mission trip opportunity and begin praying about the possibility of going.  Pamoza staff would be able to arrange an in-person meeting between you and your sponsored family if you were to come to Malawi with us.

Q6.  What happens after the 4-year commitment? 

A6:  After your 4-year commitment to your first family or families has concluded, sponsors are invited to choose one or more new families to sponsor.  But of course sponsors are also free to discontinue their involvement with the sponsorship program at that time.

Q7:  I know you’re working with families on building Character.  It seems like assessing — and addressing — Character traits of family members could be tricky.  How does Pamoza do that?

A7. Pamoza Sponsorship Facilitators live in the communities where the families they’re working with are located.  They know them and visit often, observe, listen carefully, and assess where families are with character traits such as industriousness, honesty, trustworthiness, their standing in the community and the respect they show others, marital fidelity, non-violence at home and in other relationships, sobriety, prudent and unselfish use of available money, and participation in community activities.  Because all of these Character traits are important in helping families achieve their goals, Facilitators address them head-on and guide families in working on any areas that are especially challenging to them.

Q8:  In the Health section of the Family Profiles, you talk about “primary hygiene facilities.”  What are they, and why are they important?

A8:  There’s no electricity or running water in the areas Pamoza serves. Primary hygiene facilities are structures or tools that are used to prevent common illnesses and ailments.  Pamoza encourages families to build, use, and maintain the following hygiene facilities to improve their chances of being healthy:

A pit latrine begins with a pit that’s dug 12′ – 15′ deep, 6′ – 9′ long, and 4′ – 6′ wide.  The pit is covered to make a mud floor with a small hole measuring 6″ – 9″ by 4″ – 6″ in the center, where you “go to the bathroom.”  The entire pit is surrounded by a structure made of mud walls with a grass-thatched roof.  Families who don’t have a pit latrine use the bushes — quite unhygienic.

A bath shelter is a 6′ – 9′ by 6′ – 9′ shelter made of wood poles with grass, corn stalks, or reeds.  It allows individuals to take a splash bath privately, without having to travel to the river or wait until it’s dark to wash outside without being seen.  A bath shelter also increases the chances that a bather will use boiled [safer] water instead of river water.

A kitchen is a small building of mud walls and a grass-thatched roof, built for cooking.  It is separate from the house where family members sleep.  Cooking uses firewood or charcoal, and smoke builds up, which contributes to respiratory ailments if cooking is done too close to the sleeping area.

A dish drying rack is a platform made of small sticks.  It allows families to keep their dishes off of the damp ground and dry them in the sun.  Facilitators encourage families to wash dishes in warm water and dry them in the sun to kill disease-causing germs. 

A rubbish pit is an open pit 9′ – 12′ deep and 6′ – 9′ in length and width.  Without landfills and the weekly municipal trash collections Americans are accustomed to, a rubbish pit is the best way for Malawian families to keep their homes and property clean and prevent visits from unwanted flies, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, and snakes. 

A clothes drying line helps to ensure that clothes are dried safely, out of the dirt and off of bushes, where insects have more of an opportunity to attach to fibers and lay their eggs, contributing to skin issues. 

Q9: What happens to my sponsorship donations if my sponsored family can no longer participate?

Pamoza International makes every effort to use your sponsorship gifts to support the family you selected. Occasionally, a family’s circumstances or eligibility may change and they may no longer be able to participate in the program. In those situations, Pamoza may use the funds to support another family, a related program or initiative, or another area of greatest need consistent with supporting vulnerable families in rural Malawi.